Page 273 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

SUSTAINABLE BROKERAGE 251

seen already in the context of s-shaped diffusion curves, brokers play a critical role—
perhaps the critical role—in normalizing paradigm-shifting practices, enabling these
practices to become immediately more mainstream and accepted by the general
community.
Admittedly, our brokers are fairly new at this. It still feels a bit uncomfortable to
be ahead of the curve, pitching sustainable practices to hardnosed, unsentimental,
set-in-their-ways developers (as well as to the other brokers with whom we work).
And we’ve been very careful in our public presentations to ensure that our talk does
not exceed our walk. Our brokerage firm has been involved in brokering some of
the first LEED leasing deals in the country, as a result of representing our com-
pany’s various developments. But we are still in the process of becoming a sustain-
able brokerage firm—by learning more, talking to more and more people, refining
our service offerings to best meet the needs of our clients, and growing our business
along the way. But the very nature of our evolution is significant. Brokers, much more
than cutting-edge developers, represent the mainstream. Our struggles are every-
one’s struggles. Over time, each person in the brokerage group has found an aspect
of sustainable development that resonates with him or her. It could be a desire to
preserve the quality and quantity of our coastal waterways or a concern for public
health. Or it could be because we want our clients to remain competitive and think
that high-performance green buildings are an important component of competition.
It could be all of the above, or a million other things about sustainable development
that make sense. We take what resonates with us and tell authentic stories to our clients
and the community.

Competitive Advantage?

Michael Porter, considered an authority on competition and strategy, defines compet-
itive advantage as the capacity of a firm to both create and sustain extraordinary prof-
its (compared to rivals in a particular sector) over the long term. As Porter notes, there
are two basic types of competitive advantage: the advantage that comes from being a
leader in managing one’s costs and the advantage that comes from differentiation. 18
Let’s consider each briefly.
Pricing, in the traditional brokerage world, is not much of a differentiator. Most
commercial brokerages charge similar commissions. Given the commodity-like nature
of this business, brokerage firms are continually looking for value-added, fee-based
services that can add to a company’s bottom line while helping to differentiate one
firm from the others. Many provide asset management services, appraisal work, and/or
financing. None, to our knowledge, provides sustainable brokerage services. We are
an early if not first mover in a burgeoning business.
Having said that, we don’t feel this differentiation will last indefinitely—or even all
that long. First, more and more green building product is coming on line, making
it easier for even conventional brokers to market green product. Second, there is a